Patates Lemonates (Greek Lemon Potatoes)

When it comes to roast potatoes, people often prize crispness as the ultimate goal; there’s a reason that Kenji’s crispy British-style roasted spuds is one of our most popular recipes. But there are plenty of other styles of oven-roasted potatoes that are worthy of attention, that place a premium on creamy tenderness rather than crunch. Patates lemonates, a classic Greek side of potatoes roasted with olive oil, lemon juice, and oregano, are a top contender in this category. A generous splash of stock or water added to the pan before it goes in the oven creates a braise-roast hybrid cooking environment that gives the spuds their characteristic fork-tender texture. Unlike many Western European potato dishes (I’m looking at you, France), patates lemonates take advantage of the flavor-absorbing qualities of potatoes to imbue them with a burst of citrus acidity rather than just fat and woodsy herbs. This brightness makes them the perfect foil to hearty roasted or grilled meats and seafood.

As is often the case with roast potatoes, patates lemonates are commonly prepared as an accompaniment to roast chicken, with pieces of potato arranged around a bird in a roasting pan so that they soak up poultry juices during cooking. But patates lemonates, which are also known as patates riganates (oregano) or patates sto fourno (oven-roasted), can also easily be prepared on their own.

The simplest approach is to combine large pieces of potato in a baking dish with chicken stock, olive oil, lemon juice, and oregano, and roast them in a hot oven until tender. I went through many rounds of testing tinkering with this method, experimenting with fully uncovered roasting, and then covering and uncovering the baking dish at different intervals to try to create the optimal balance between tenderness and surface browning on the potatoes. Achieving consistent results with this method using different ovens proved to be difficult, so I decided to turn to a non-traditional technique for patates lemonates that has served me well for another iteration of braise-roasted potatoes, French pommes de terre fondantes.

Starting the potatoes in a hot pan with olive oil on the stovetop allowed me to control surface browning, and better dial in the ratio of liquids in the recipe. Striking the right balance between chicken stock, olive oil, and lemon juice is key to this dish. Many recipes call for a 1:1:1 ratio, which I found produced overwhelmingly acidic results. The lemon should be assertive and punchy, but in a sunny, warm fashion. Also, unlike with fondant potatoes, chicken stock isn’t being used to give the dish a saucy finish. I wanted to use just enough that it could get the potatoes tender, and by the time they had reached that texture the stock would have been almost completely absorbed and evaporated, leaving just a slick of aromatic olive oil in the pan.

By getting a jump start on the cooking process on the stovetop, I was able to home in on the roasting time and rate of evaporation, and found that a 3:2:1 ratio of chicken stock to olive oil to lemon juice gave me the flavor I was after. To drive the brightness of the citrus home, I held back one tablespoon of lemon juice until the potatoes came out of the oven, and stirred it in before serving to achieve a happy medium between the warm sweetness of cooked lemon and bracing punch of fresh juice. This is a side dish that can easily upstage any main.